


Like Water Off a Detective’s Back

by gardnerhill



Category: Gravity Falls, Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Community: watsons_woes, Crack, M/M, Prompt Fic, Weather
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-28
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-07-27 11:13:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7615834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some folks are just better adapted to English weather than others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Water Off a Detective’s Back

**Author's Note:**

> For the 2016 July Watson's Woes Promptfest prompt #28, **"In July the sun is hot; is it shining? No it's not." - Flanders & Swann: **A song of the weather.

It’s a grand old tradition in England to complain about the weather – the cold, the fog, the ever-threatening rain, the timorous sunlight that’s better at hiding behind a cloud-bank even during high summer.

Nothing suited Duck-Tective more. Both he and his partner Steve were perfectly attuned to their city in every face the year gave her, and their pairing echoed the changes in the seasons.

In spring, while Constable Lingonberry shuddered and huddled under his dripping umbrella and came up with yet more tired bird-related puns, the behatted waterfowl waddled around the crime scene hardly pausing even to shake his back free of the downpour. Steve flapped his flipper-wings and squawked for pleasure matched by Duck-Tective; not even the presence of a bloated human corpse could quell their mood on such days.

Summers could be hot and humid, which was oppressive for the penguin. On such days when the heat eddied everywhere with not a sign of the sun behind the clouds, Steve stayed in their rooms lying on a coal-scuttle full of ice and finishing their paperwork while Duck-Tective met the constable on-site to once again save the human from his own stupidity. When deducing took too long in the heat, the detective hopped into the nearest body of water for a quick paddle (rather to the dismay of several cart-horses who sometimes found a duck in a deerstalker invading their water-troughs).

Autumn fog and cold relieved the torpor of summer, and the odd birds were once again paired up in the park to take down purse snatchers. After a hard day’s work they dined in the park as well – Duck-Tective on cracked corn at the hands of delighted children, and Steve from fingerlings in the pond. (A few clever human park regulars brought tins of pilchards as well as bags of bread-crumbs.)

And in winter, it was the duck who stayed in their rooms pecking at the Scotland Yard files on his desk before a blazing fire while Steve charged around London a step ahead of Lingonberry and shooting across a frozen pond on his belly to seize a fleeing criminal by the ankle. After a word of praise and a well-deserved herring from the beleaguered constable, Steve was back to the rooms he shared with his partner – his own room with the windows open and the fire unlit, until spring could reunite them at work once again.

**Author's Note:**

> The “Duck-tective” shorts from _Gravity Falls_ can all be seen [in this clip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OTAHhxvr_g).


End file.
